Spalding, Lincolnshire


Spalding /ˈspɒldɪŋ / is a market town with a population of 28,722 at the 2011 census, on the River Welland in the South Holland district of Lincolnshire, England. Little London is a hamlet directly south of Spalding on the B1172, whilst Pinchbeck, a village to the north, is part of the built-up area.
The town was well known for the annual Spalding Flower Parade, held from 1959 to 2013. The parade celebrated the region's vast tulip production and the cultural links between the Fens and the landscape and people of South Holland. At one time, it attracted crowds of more than 100,000. Since 2002 the town has held an annual Pumpkin Festival in October.

History

Archaeological excavations at Wygate Park in Spalding have shown that there has been occupation in this area from at least the Roman period, when this part of Lincolnshire was used for the production of salt. It was a coastal siltland. At Wygate Park salt-making seems to have come to an end by the mid-7th century BC; climatic change and flooding may have made such activities difficult, causing the practice to die out.
The settlement's name is derived from an Anglian tribe, the Spaldingas, who settled in the area during the 6th century. They may have retained their administrative independence within the Kingdom of Mercia into the late 9th century, when Stamford became one of the Five Boroughs of the East Midlands under Danish control after years of invasion and occupation.
In John Bartholomew's Gazetteer of the British Isles, Spalding was described as a:
market town and par. with ry. sta., Lincolnshire, on River Welland, 14 m. SW. of Boston, 12,070 ac., pop. 9260; P.O., T.O., three Banks, two newspapers. Market-day, Tuesday. Spalding is an important railway centre, while the river has been made navigable to the town for vessels of from 50 to 70 tons. It is in a rich agricultural district, and has a large trade, by river and by rail, in corn, wool, coal, and timber. It has also flour, bone, and saw mills, breweries, and coach works. There are remains of a priory of 1501, a fine old church, a grammar school, a corn exchange, and a spacious market place.

River Welland

Draining of the Fens

The River Welland flows north from Crowland, through Spalding and passing the village and port of Fosdyke before leading out to the Wash, bisecting Spalding from east to west; the town has developed as a linear settlement around the river. Land had been reclaimed from the wetlands in the area since mediaeval times, and Spalding was subject to frequent flooding. The Coronation Channel, opened in 1953, diverted the excess waters around Spalding and ended the flooding. The area around the banks has been developed for residential and business use. Although this area has become heavily built up, there is much recreational use of the river and fishing is still popular.

Water Taxi

In July 2005 a "Spalding Water Taxi" service was launched, running from Easter to late October. Its route is from just off Spalding's High Street, upstream along the river, turning into the Coronation Channel, and then to Springfields Outlet Shopping & Festival Gardens, and back. It is mainly used as a recreational tourist attraction.

Vernatt's Drain

Around the north-west of Spalding is a large waterway called Vernatt's Drain, named after one of the Adventurers who drained the Fens in the 17th century. Philibert Vernatti was made a baronet on 7 June 1643.
A South Holland council nature reserve is situated on part of the old Boston railway line at Vernatts Drain. The Drain runs from the pumping station at Pode Hole to Surfleet Seas End.
Fulney Lock is the point where the Welland is no longer tidal. Spalding falls within the drainage area of the Welland and Deepings Internal Drainage Board.

Demography

The town has a population of about 28,000. The population is growing fast, with increases partly caused by retired people settling in the area, as well as migrant workers employed in local food processing factories or in agriculture, sectors that have traditionally employed overseas workers on a seasonal basis. Concerns have been expressed about the exploitation of workers from eastern Europe, as well as increased pressure on local services.

Healthcare

The Johnson Hospital, named after prominent local figures, the Johnson family of Ayscoughfee Hall, is in Spalding. The maternity ward was closed in the 1990s, and it now serves as a casualty hospital. The elderly and care-patients are cared for at the Welland Hospital. Limits on expansion due to the historic nature of the building and space limitations and lack of funding are causing financial trouble for the hospital.
A new nurse-led hospital was built in 2009 off Pinchbeck Road in the north of the town, near the Pinchbeck Industrial Estate. The hospital is known as "The Johnson Community Hospital," keeping the historic connection with the Johnson Family. The Princess Royal opened the new Hospital officially in January 2010. This has drawn facilities from existing scattered sites into a modern central unit. The nearest major hospitals to Spalding are at Boston and Peterborough. The Johnson Hospital has 32 in-patient beds in the Welland Ward, including the four beds of the Tulip Suite for palliative care. There are two major local doctors' surgeries, Munro Medical Centre, West Elloe Avenue, and the relocated Church Street Surgery at Beechfield Medical Centre in Beechfield Gardens. Smaller surgeries are in surrounding villages.

Education

Primary schools

Spalding's two secondary modern schools were the Gleed Boys' School and the Gleed Girls' Technology College. In 2012 they were combined as the Sir John Gleed School. On leaving Sir John Gleed School, many pupils transfer to nearby sixth forms or attend Boston College or New College Stamford, which both have Further Education centres in the town. In 2016, SLAT took over management of the Sir John Gleed School, and was renamed Spalding Academy.
The town's state grammar schools are Spalding Queen Elizabeth Royal Free Grammar School and Spalding High School, both of which have mixed sixth forms.
There are also schools for children with special learning needs: the Priory School and the Garth School.

Sixth Form Colleges

A vocational 6th form was established and launched in September 2008 as part of the Gleed Campus. It is not an automatic transition as with other schools in the area, like the Grammar, High, and the Deepings. Previous to this, there was no sixth-form available for pupils not attending the grammar schools, although pupils from Gleed schools can and do transfer to the Grammar and High for A-Levels.

Industry and commerce

Flowers and vegetables

Spalding is located at the centre of a major region of flower and vegetable cultivation, due to the rich silty soil, which mainly comprises drained, recovered marshland or estuary. There are many garden centres and plant nurseries, as well as a thriving agricultural industry and various vegetable packing plants. The main vegetables are potatoes, peas, carrots, wheat, barley, oats, broccoli, spinach, lettuce, cabbage, kale and Brussels sprouts. The vast majority of these are sold to large concerns such as supermarkets, with little being available for sale locally.
Spalding has a popular, reasonably-sized, market every Tuesday and Saturday and on the first Saturday in every month a farmers market. Local fruit and vegetable shop Booth's sells much local produce to Spalding's citizens. They sell all major fruit and vegetables ranging from the famous, locally grown 'Boston' potatoes to imported rarities such as custard apples.

Tulips

Known as The Heart of the Fens, Spalding has been long famous as a centre of the bulb industry. It has had close links with the Netherlands.
The annual Tulip Parade took place on the first Saturday in May, from 1959 and was a major tourist attraction. Its procession of floats on various themes, was each decorated with tulip petals, a by-product of the bulb industry. In years when the tulips are late, daffodils or hyacinths were sometimes used in their place. When the tulips were early, crepe paper had to be substituted. The flower industry has become less important since the early 21st century. The bands of brightly coloured tulip fields in bloom in spring that covered the fenland have decreased markedly. At its peak, the Parade attracted more than 100,000 visitors, but by 2012, fewer than 40,000 attended. That year, the Lincolnshire County Council and South Holland District Council announced they would not fund the parade beyond 2013.
Spalding was chosen to host the World Tulip Summit in 2008, alongside a broader "Tulipmania" festival which coincided with the date of the fiftieth Flower Parade.

Main companies

Historic buildings

dates from the 15th-century and is now operated as a museum. St Mary and St Nicolas was built in 1284 by William de Littleport of Spalding Priory. The tower and spire were added in 1360.
The Church of St John the Baptist was built in 1875, at the same time as the adjacent Church school. St Paul's at Fulney, on the eastern side of the town, was designed by Sir George Gilbert Scott and completed in 1880 after his death.
Other local attractions are the Pinchbeck Engine Museum, the Bulb Museum and the Gordon Boswell Romany Museum, to the south of the town. The Chain Bridge Forge is a 19th-century blacksmith's forge on the River Welland; many of its original features have been preserved and it is operated as a museum.
The Chatterton Tower is near Sainsbury's.

War memorial

is in the grounds of Ayscoughfee Hall and commemorates the 224 men from the town killed in the First World War. It was conceived by Barbara McLaren, the widow of the town's MP Francis McLaren, and designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens, known for his war memorials including the Cenotaph on Whitehall in London. It takes the form of a pavilion and a Stone of Remembrance at the head of a long reflecting pool; the names of the fallen are inscribed on the back wall of the pavilion.

Commercial and civic buildings

Several supermarkets are available to locals: a small Tesco Express store, a Sainsbury's, a Lidl and an Aldi in the centre of the town, a Marks and Spencer Food Hall, and a Morrisons in Pinchbeck. Outside of the town centre, Springfields Shopping Outlet and Gardens offer a wide range of outlet stores set in a variety of landscaped gardens designed by Charlie Dimmock and Chris Beardshaw among others. The Castle Sports Complex provides fitness facilities throughout the day and evening. The South Holland Centre is an arts centre on Market Place that stages concerts, theatre productions and film showings.

History of the barcode

On 7 October 1979, the first barcode to be used at a shopping till in the UK was at Key Markets in Spalding.

Power stations

The new £425m, 860MW combined cycle gas turbine Spalding Power Station, owned by Intergen, was built on the former site of British Sugar on West Marsh Road by Bechtel in October 2004. Intergen have also consented to build a second 900 MW expansion to its existing Power station, which is due to commence construction 2011. In mid-2006 a new wind farm became visible from much of Spalding.

Sport

The local football team is Spalding United, who play in the Northern Premier League Division One South East.
The local rugby team is Spalding RFC, who play in Midland Division - Midlands 1 East. They play at Memorial Field.
The local cricket team is Spalding Town Cricket Club, who have three teams on a Saturday in the South Lincs and Border Leagues and a Rutland League team and a Friendly XI on a Sunday for 2012. This as well as youth teams at multiple age groups competing in the BCYCA Leagues.
The local hockey club is Spalding HC, with the men's 1st XI playing in East Division 2N and the women in 2NW.

Transport

Road

Spalding, like nearby Boston, is a regular destination of heavy goods vehicles transporting processed vegetables and other food produce. The A16 used to pass through the town until August 1995, when the Spalding-Sutterton Improvement was opened, built mostly on the closed Spalding to Boston railway line. The twelve-mile A1073 between Spalding and Eye Green in Peterborough has been replaced by a completely new road classified as the A16, replacing the previous A16 that ran to Stamford. The older road has been renumbered as the A1175.

Rail

is situated on the Lincoln Central - Peterborough railway line, operated by East Midlands Railway. The service is irregular, and it does not run at night or on Sundays. It does provide convenient access to Peterborough for employment and shopping. The service to Peterborough was withdrawn by BR in October 1970 as part of the closure of the East Lincolnshire route from Grimsby and Boston, but reinstated in June 1971 with a grant from Spalding Urban District Council. This was one of the first examples of this type of rail support in the UK, and was not advocated in the Beeching Report.
The section of the Great Northern & Great Eastern 'Joint' line from March, which carried the 'Boat Train' between Harwich and Sheffield, closed in 1982. The trackbed has largely been built over at the south of the town for housing. There has been encroachment towards Cowbit for new road construction.
Spalding was also on the east–west Midland and Great Northern Joint Railway, which had Bourne to the West and Holbeach to the east. It closed in February 1959, ending through passenger services from Leicester to Great Yarmouth via King's Lynn and Norwich. Local freight, mainly farm produce, continued to be carried between Bourne and Sutton Bridge until 1964.
On 4 May 2002, Spalding had the honour of having a main-line diesel locomotive named after it. Class 31 diesel No. 31106, in immaculate condition after a major works overhaul, hauled the 'St James Tripper' excursion to Peterborough from Preston via Doncaster, Lincoln and Sleaford, and made a brief stop at the station to have its 'Spalding Town' nameplates unveiled by Colin Fisher, Chairman of South Holland District Council. No. 31106 is the property of Cambridgeshire businessman and author Howard Johnston, who was born at nearby Cowbit and educated in the town. In 2012, the locomotive was still on hire to Rail Vehicle Engineering Limited and employed on Network Rail track measurement trains all over the United Kingdom. A replica 'Spalding Town' nameplate has been presented to SHDC for public display.

Tulip Radio

Spalding had a community radio station, Tulip Radio, which broadcast from 2009 until it was uprooted in 2017.

Twin cities